AG’s wrong advice puts CID officers in trouble

Monday, 09 July 2012

The Attorney General’s Department had advised the CID officers to get a court order to protect them in the event a case was filed against the raid on the office of Sri Lanka Mirror and Sri Lanka X News. However, a magisterial directive has indicated that the CID would not receive such immunity. The CID has taken the court order to raid the website office stating the violation of criminal defamation law, attempt to act against the state and bring defame the President’s name. Courts had been informed that the police special bureau had informed the details t the CID. The criminal defamation law had been repealed 10 years ago and the CID had not received any evidence to prove that action against the state had been taking place at the website office.

Evidence had not been found to prove that the President’s name had been damaged.

When the late Anura Banadarnaike filed a fundamental rights petition before the Supreme Court against the police for searching his Rosemead Place residence to find Susantha Punchinilame who was accused of assassinating Nalanda Ellawela, the court ruled that the police would not be provided immunity for its illegal action by getting a search warrant.

The Supreme Court said that the police would be guilty of violating fundamental rights if it had given false and misleading information to courts to get the search warrant. Therefore, the Supreme Court rejected the fact that the police had a warrant to search the Rosemead Place residence.

Therefore, the operators of Sri Lanka Mirror and Sri Lanka X News have the opportunity of following this precedent and filing a fundamental rights petition before Supreme Court.